The Admiral Stands Fast

ARMY & NAVY

Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, who recently (and somewhat defensively) reaffirmed his faith in the battleship (TIME, April 9), last week had some good words to say for air power: "Without our highly developed and closely integrated air arm, we would, in all probability, still be operating in Allied territory today."

But austere, brassbound Ernie King still did not concede that air power was more important than the Navy's seniority list. In the U.S. Navy, ranking air experts (i.e., admirals who have given their full careers to air power) still hold only second-layer jobs, and Admiral King has shown no sign that he will give them any more recognition until seniority does.

His new promotion list, long awaited by the Navy (TIME, Jan. 22, et seg.), surprised no one. Thirty-five line officers' names were on it. Three wingless vice admirals got a fourth star: grizzled 60-year-old Richard S. Edwards, King's deputy COMINCH; shy, barrel-chested Henry K. Hewitt, 58, "Nimitz of the Mediterranean"; suave, salty Thomas C. Kinkaid, 57, boss of the Seventh Fleet and member of MacArthur's famous "K-team" (Kinkaid, Krueger and Kenney). Five rear admirals got three stars--but none of the eight was a naval aviator, and none was under 53. Only in the lower echelons did a few stars fall on airmen: on two commodores and three captains.

In the Army, where one airman ("Hap" Arnold) wears five stars and three old-time aviators are four-star generals, it was different. Last week an Army promotion list raised three aviators to three-star rank, making a total of ten Army airmen with the rank of lieutenant general. The three new ones: tall, handsome, 46-year-old Hoyt S. Vandenberg, boss of the Ninth Air Force on the Continent, and nephew of Michigan's Senator; bald-headed John K. ("Uncle Joe") Cannon, 53, boss of the Twelfth Air Force in Italy (and no kin to the late, famed G.O.P. Speaker); and articulate, blue-eyed, fast-talking Harold Lee ("Bombardment") George, 51, who runs the world's biggest airline, the Army's Air Transport Command.

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